COMEDY as a specific type of humor
COMEDY as a specific type of humor COMEDY bears the same relation to farce and slapstick that drama does to melodrama. It is the highest and most serious form of humorous writing and it is required that the likelihoods shall be observed. Comedy may not tax belief. It must be so framed as to find ready acceptance as fact. It must be true to the general rules of life and not to the exceptional incident. 2. Comedy is the generic name for all classes of humorous writing —as well as the specific label for the highest form. The true comedy is also known by various sub classifications as "Society, " "Polite, " "Parlor, " "Light, " and other names which are more or less explanatory. All refer to the same general type, but a society comedy is supposed to concern fashionable personages; parlor or polite comedies are those marked by absence of the slapstick element and is comedy played with a light and graceful touch. It has been said that comedy proper is the most serious form of the humorous story, but here the word serious is to be taken only in a relative sense if the plot is serious the play is some form of drama or comedy drama. In comedy the plot itself as well as the action must be light and amusing, but light does not mean trivial but suggests rather an absence of complication and labored effort to be humorous. The story must be complete, it must be backed by idea and it must be as cunningly contrived as the most pretentious drama though the plot should not be as intricate and involved lest the attention required to follow the thread of the story will detract too materially from the action. In a properly developed drama every scene has a direct and important bearing upon the advancement of the plot. The action tells the plot and so much of the plot that there is small chance for digression. In comedy the action is almost equally important with plot. Not alone must the story be amusing, but the action telling the story must also be amusing. This requires a greater footage for the introduction of the essential by-play. If the plot is so ample that the footage barely suffices for the telling of the story there will be no room for enlivening action. If you will read the best humorous authors you will find that it is not the story alone but the amusing manner in which the story is told that gives you pleasure. In comedies of the stage the dialogue is as important as the plot. In photoplay action must replace words and the action itself must be amusing. But action alone will not make for comedy. There was a time when the incident comedy marked the transition stage from the short length to the half reel. A scientist invented a potion that would cause persons to laugh or dance or sing or kiss each other. After the invention of the producer gave out, these various persons got together and assaulted the scientist. In another form the leading character was called Mrs. Nosey or Mr. Buttinsky and went through a succession of scenes in which interference with the affairs of others invariably resulted in disaster. In the same class were the monomania stories in which the chief character made love to everyone, fought everyone, tried to fly or to imitatea submarine. When incident alone failed to be amusing through repetition, the chase was introduced. Each victim gave pursuit until thirty to fifty persons pursued the leading character, over fences, up and down stairs, through and over all sorts of obstructions to the inevitable violent end. It was even permissible to kick a football out of the scene and make five hundred feet of film in which the football bounded through a succession of scenes with a mob of ever-increasing size in pursuit. The incident story is probably gone never to return, but the short chase as the terminal to a rough comedy is by no means extinct and may be revived every few years, provided that now some more definite and plausible reason is provided for the pursuit. 9. The very inanity of these pictures brought about the demand for a comedy with a sound idea and definite purpose, and it was through reaction from the chase that the first of the real comedies came into being. Motion pictures were beginning to appeal to persons of intelligence; the dramatic plays were gaining in plot and finish, and comedy of the true sort came into being. It is human nature to laugh at the misfortune of others if the misfortune is not attended by serious results. We laugh when we see a man fall on the icy pavement. In the first place his violent efforts to keep or regain his balance are ludicrous and in addition there is a feeling of superiority in the thought that we are keeping on our feet. But if the man should break an arm or leg or fracture his skull, laughter is banished in an instant and we hasten to his aid, all concern and sympathy. We laugh at the man who slips on the ice, but it is a momentary and trivial laugh unless the fall leads to other and more lasting consequences. A man falling brings a laugh that is closely akin to shock just as women laugh the loudest when on the stage men in women's clothes raise their skirts. They are not amused. A moment later they may be angered, but they are shocked by the unexpected and find relief in mechanical laughter. There is no mirth. On the other hand if the man falling on the ice leads to some other development then his fall becomes really funny because it contributes to the plot. If we are interested in Jack, who has just been kicked out of Mabel's house by her irate father and the latter is racing down the walk to administer one more kick, then if he steps on little Bobby's express wagon lying in the path and does a somersault, we not only laugh because his actions are amusing but because he has only his violent temper to blame and because the accident gives Jack a chance to make his escape. From this example, it will be seen that a comedy action derives its main appeal through its relation to the plot. Also we perceive that it does not have to be as closely connected with the plot as dramatic action. It is not essential that the father should fall to carry on the story. He might be outdistanced or be seized with a rheumatic twinge, but he must be stopped in some manner, and the fall is more amusing to the sight than the rheumatism or the lack of speed and so that is used in preference. It would be sufficient to the plot that the father fails to catch Jack, but the more humorous and amusing the action in which the fact is told the more sprightly and acceptable does the comedy become. If instead of the wagon we planned to have Mabel throw a fruit skin in her parent's path or toss a stick between his feet, tripping up the old gentleman, then the situation would be even more amusing though the fall would remain the same. 14. Writing comedy action is more an accomplishment than a gift. An author may have a keen sense of the humorous and still be unable to find expression for this humor in proper action until he has trained himself to think in comedy action. But once the trick is gained—and it is largely a trick—the writing of comedy action becomes almost mechanical. A situation is conceived and immediately the action presents itself. The sub-conscious mind has been planning the comedy action while the active mind has been conceiving the situation, and it now responds with the proper suggestion. 15. Not every scene is required to have comedy action, but most scenes should, and it is best in all scenes longer than a mere flash to show at least one distinct comedy action or situation. Note this series of scenes: • Parlor as in No. 3—Bill making love to May—Father enters— orders him from the house—orders May to leave the room—she exits—Father follows Bill out. • • Front as in No. 2—Father and Bill enter from house—Father sternly tells Bill not to come again—Bill exits. • 16. Front gale—Bill coming down the walk—comes through gate— looks' back at house—turns and walks out of scene. This is action that tells the story. In drama it would be the proper sort of action since then it would be required only to show that Bill is forbidden the house. In drama the fact is more important than the action. In comedy the action is of equal importance with the fact. It is the purpose of comedy to make people laugh. The story must make them laugh, and the action, the way the story is told, must also make them laugh. In a drama it would be quite enough if we showed the parlor scene and had the father speak a leader. We would not be able to afford a greater footage for one fact so simple. In comedy we have less story and more footage. We can have all three of those scenes if we can make them amusing. But we must pay for the footage in laughter. 16. The way to get the laughs is to build up the action. The idea is there. The action is not amusing. It must be elaborated. Try this: • Parlor as in No. 3—Bill and May on, spooning—he starts to kiss her just as Father appears in doorway—May has her mouth puckered for the kiss, but it does not land—Bill keeps on turning his head to see Father watching—Father comes down, waving cane—May rouses—Bill goes over the back of the sofa—only his head shows above—Father slashes at Bill's head—Bill ducks—Father gets down on knees—pokes under sofa with cane—Bill climbs back over the top—slips—falls on Father—May picks Father up—pleads with him—he throws her from him—she falls into Bill's arms—he kisses her—Father strikes at him—drags May from him—May turns her head for another kiss—Father lets go of her and grabs Bill by the neck —leads him out—May follows—weeping. • • Front of house as in No. 2—Father enters from house with Bill —places him for a kick—as he is about to swing May comes from house with Bill's hat—grabs Father's coat tails—pulls him back as he kicks—kick falls short—Father falls—May tosses Bill his hat—he throws her a kiss—out of scene—Father up and follows—May follows him- • 16. Front gate—gate closed—Bill running down walk—Father and May in pursuit—Bill jumps over gate—Father runs into it—loses his wind—collapses, hanging on to gate—Bill kisses May over fence—tips hat to Father—exits. This is almost farcical action, but it is purposely exaggerated a trifle to mark the contrast between this and the straight action, and it is action not much more marked than that which is permissible in comedy. It should be noted that this does not read humorously. If you had to read half a dozen pages you might never even smile. Most Editors of experience are afraid of the story that makes them laugh as they read the action. They know that the story that reads well does not play well because the author has given his attention to expression in words and not in action and the action suffers. This is the chief essential in writing comedy. Remember always that your story must be funny and your action must be funny, but that the words in which the action is set forth should be the plainest and simplest that you can tell the action in. You cannot take five lines to tell what a famous football player Father was and tell how scared Bill is. You say that Father enters. That is all. If Father was a famous football player and you think that it will help to make capital of that fact, prepare for this scene by showing in actual scene or vision that he was a star half-back. Then if Bill is scared his reason will be plain, but if you merely write in the action that Bill is scared because he knows that Father is a gridiron star it will not help the action any, for only the Editor will see it and he will know that the audience will not know and so he will not value your clever phrase. If you want to make capital of the fact, you must first show the fact to your audience and then use the suggestion. You must make a deposit before you can write checks against it. Perhaps in some early scene you see a couple of boys playing with a football. Father comes along and tells how he used to punt. He kicks the ball out of the scene, you cut in a picture of the ball going over the top of the house, you come back to Father and he remarks that he used to do better than that. If Jack happens to be passing and sees, then when Father appears in the doorway, a flash of the kick will bring . back the scene and now you will be able to make capital of the thought. It is not probable that the laugh you will get will 'repay tlle trouble you cause, but it is the way you should do it if you want the audiences to know. You cannot merely write it in the action to make it sound funnier to the Editor. He will know better. Probably when he was not so old in the business he bought a couple of scripts just because they read well and has been regretting it ever since. 19. Next to the action the cut-in is perhaps the most useful aid to comedy. At times a leader seems to crystallize a laugh. A scene is funny, but not quite funny enough to bring a laugh. The audience is amused and quite willing to laugh, but there seems to be nothing to pin the laugh to. The action is all diverting, they are ready and even eager to laugh, but do not know just when to start. A slightly more pronounced action may start the laugh, or a leader may connect the idea with the action to either bring the laugh or to strengthen the laugh already started. In Chapter XXXIX there may be no laugh or only a small one when the girl drops ice cream on Jim's coat. The cut-in leader to the effect that he does not mind, because it is a borrowed coat, will connect the thought with the action and not only gain a strong laugh but pave the way for a still stronger laugh a moment later when the girl repeats the performance. It is only human to dance when another pays the fiddler and Jim's calm acceptance of the damage done Bill's coat will bring the laugh if we know that it is Bill's and not Jim's coat. We do know, but the reminder at this precise instant will precipitate the laugh. These leaders must be written with the utmost care. It is not sufficient merely to say something. What is said must be the sentence that will most briefly and most forcefully remind the spectator of the fact. The use of slang, sayings of the street and the like are to be avoided, not only on account of the foreign trade, as already explained, but because the life of a film is apt to exceed in length the newness of a current phrase. No matter how aptly it may apply, do not use it. You will see this rule constantly violated upon the screen, but that is no reason why you should also offend. If you need a smart phrase get one of your own. Straight leaders between scenes should be limited to fact and time leaders. Here the anticipated action is even more apt to lose value than in drama. If, in the foregoing example, you had written "Jim tells Grace he doesn't care what she does to Bill's coat, " the surprise would be gone. All that would remain would be the question of just what she did to the coat, not the question of what the scene would bring forth. Scenes in comedy should be brief. Any scene too long continued becomes tiresome; a fact sometimes utilized in drama to gain intensity. In comedy intensity is not required. It is better to get your laugh, go to another scene and come back to the first one if necessary. It is better to cut a long scene into two or more parts and have short, snappy scenes. It not only individualizes the laughs, but it makes for the suggestion of speed. It is this fact which has led to the fiction that all comedies should contain about a hundred scenes. Having heard this statement made repeatedly and without qualification of any kind, the novice is too apt to suppose that one hundred regular scenes are meant and he gets two or more reels of action, mostly padding. Even studio men doing special writing for one particular director seldom, if ever, turn out one reel with a hundred scenes. They are more apt to write sixty to seventy scenes and permit the director to make the rest of the cut-backs on his joining slip. If you cannot cut-back skillfully use fewer scenes still. The director then can get a clearer idea of your action and use his own better judgment as to where to cut back on the action as it shows. Comedy should be good natured. It should also be wholesome. Death and the suggestion of death should be avoided on the screen, though comedies have even shown men digging themselves out of their graves after having been buried alive. Good comedies— that is to say, funny stories—may be written about death or the trappings of death, but even the ghostly undertaker and the crape placed on the wrong doorknob sometimes react. There are so many other and more cheerful themes that it will pay you to avoid any suggestion of death. There is a steady run of unbought scripts patterned after the scene in Con the Shaughraun in which Con participates in his own wake. Write yours, if you will, but for the sake of your reputation, do not try to sell it. Ministers are not humorous as a class, and many persons will resent disrespect to the cloth. You may have little reverence yourself, but commercial common sense should urge the omission of ministers from your comedy material. Ministers should be used only for marriages and then should not be exploited. On the other hand the hypocritical deacon is a sometimes amusing but always a sadly overworked figure. In comedy, particularly, it is necesqa ry to avoid giving offense to any particular class, race, creed or party. Do not assail any tenet of any faith or any general belief. There may be humor to you in much that others hold sacred and you must remember that you are trying to amuse the world and not merely yourself and the Editor. You may write a stage drama that may be shown in the United States alone or perhaps here and in England, but your screen play will circle the world. To you as to many others, the Chinaman may be a "Chink, " a Mexican a "Greaser, " a Frenchman a "Frog, " an Italian a "Dago, " but if your films are to be offered for sale in those countries you must not give offense to its peoples. You may use them, but you may not caricature them. Many persons find a drunken man supremely, funny. Many others see only the tragedy. Handle it discreetly or better still, avoid it. You may see humor in a harelip or bowed legs. In many families some bodily affliction is a domestic tragedy they try to forget when they come to the theatre. There are plenty of opportunities for good- natured comedy and you are not required to become ill- humored. Avoid racial peculiarities. Shylock is permitted in Shakespeare, where the "comedy Jew" is offensive to others than the race slandered, and it should be remembered that Shylock was not shown as a type of usurer and swindler, but as a man, proud of his race, who sought, through his exactions, to obtain revenge on a defamer of his people. It is not as a lender of money at usurious rates that he is pictured. He seeks not money but the right, apparently given him in his bond, to take the life of the man who has aroused his hatred. In the best type of comedy you laugh with rather than at people. In the lesser and ill-natured type you laugh at and not with. You laugh with your hero because he outwits a man who seeks to swindle him. You laugh at the swindler, but he is a person who is undeserving of sympathy. On the other hand if you laugh with the swindler at his triumph over his victim, then the laugh is not as sincere and the pleasure you derive from the play is less lasting. In comedy things that happen must have a reason. Il you wish to remove a character from the scene by means of the grappling anchor of a balloon, you must account for the balloon and explain why it has its anchor out. You cannot merely show a character whisked to the clouds, you must account for the balloon and prepare your spectator if you wish your story to rise above the mental level of the harlequinade. In doing so you may spoil your surprise, but in comedy, even more than in drama, the value of the momentary shock of surprise is less effective as a rule than previous knowledge and preparation that bring anticipation. Suppose that your leading eccentric character, Griggs, takes a woman to dinner at an expensive restaurant. They order a costly dinner, at the end of which Griggs finds he has no money. If this fact comes at the end of the dinner, then there is one short, sharp laugh. If we know all along, though Griggs does not, we get a constantly broadening smile that culminates in a roar of laughter. Griggs orders an elaborate dinner. We chuckle. We know that he cannot pay. The woman adds to the order. This is good for a second laugh. A bottle of wine is brought There goes another item on the already long bill. Griggs becomes expansive. We laugh still more. Presently that inflated chest will be reduced most effectually. So it keeps up until the check is brought and now the moment we see the check we roar. We do not have to wait to see Griggs vainly search his pockets before the laugh comes. We start laughing when the bill is brought and all that follows merely adds to the laugh. 34. There are exceptions, of course, but these are so few that the best general rule to follow is to keep the spectator advised and the players in ignorance. We see an old man making love to a young girl, who has promised to marry him under parental pressure. We see him persuade her to an elopement. She gets into the car, heavily veiled. They search out a minister and are married. He raises the veil. It is the girl's maiden aunt. Every point made is good for a laugh if we know the facts. Seemingly unimportant actions such as kissing her hand or giving an enthusiastic hug will bring a laugh. If we can cut back to the girl going" in an opposite direction, that too will be good for laughs, but if we must endure perhaps fifty feet of tame action for the sake of the surprise when the veil is lifted then forty-five feet of that footage are utterly wasted. We cannot go back and remember that he kissed her hand in scene thirty-nine and hugged her in forty. The story is going ahead. If we turn back it will get beyond us, but if we know in advance that it is the aunt and not the niece, then every action will have an immediate result in laughter. Care should be taken to select a plot that is clear and easily followed. Complication is to be avoided even in drama, but in comedy it is fatal to get the story too confusing. If you grow too ambitious and seek to tell a story with half a dozen complications, then the mind of the spectator will be given to the plot to the exclusion of the action or to the action to the detriment of the plot. For illustration suppose that your story concerns one John Smith and five women who are all married to various other men with the same name. Here you must identify and remember each of these five women and connect her with the plot. Each time one enters she must be recalled. In keeping track of the five women we lose track of the story and so lose interest in the women, too. But take the story of a man who borrows a wife and unknowingly gets five, it does not matter which is which; they can come and go as the author pleases without confusion to the plot, which is merely that the man has been supplied with too many borrowed wives. One story was written about a man who had three doubles, each with an individuality of his own. The story was so complicated that it was fatiguing to follow. With a dozen doubles, acting as a mob, there was no trouble at all, for the doubles were then a part of the whole and did not have to be identified individually. To give a two-edged rule you must have more action because you have less plot and less plot because you have more action. You must have sufficient plot to fully motivate your action, but you must keep it simple and direct, because the spectator would prefer to follow action to following plot. category:humor